The Age of Exploration Portugal Introduction Iberian Peninsula
The Age of Exploration: Portugal
Introduction: Iberian Peninsula §Geographical Position §Establishing and Identity… Reconquista § Capitulaciones § 1479 Union of the Crowns – Portugal remains apart §City: regionalism §Society § Grandee families (dukes, marquis, count) and lesser nobles (dons) § Hidalgo § The Clergy § Secular and Orders § All tax exempt from the Crown
Geography & Economic Life §Dominated by mountains and lacks arable land in many areas – need for trade partners § Had to import grain and manufactured goods § Exported wool, wine, fruit, cork, olive oil, salt, and fish §Castile § Interior pastoral economy—Genoese traders monopolized wool trade
§Aragon and coastal areas § Trade § Overseas company— investor and factor § Factory §Factory system helped facilitate trading post empire
§ 4 th son § 1394 -1460 §Deeply religious §Search for knightly honor §Ceuta and beyond §Maps and dreams
§Ceuta § Shortage of gold hindered European trade § 1415 King John I and his songs organize expedition to conquer this North African city § Financial failure but spurs Portuguese interest Expansion
Colonization involved medieval precedent & goal of capitalistic agricultural development Donatary captaincy- Portugal Encomienda - Spanish § Colonization of the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé § Model for future patterns of colonization § Wine, wheat, sugar § Slave labor § Different than most areas within the Portuguese realm
Examining Point-of-View
After the taking of Ceuta [in Muslim North Africa, 1415] he always kept ships well armed against the Infidel, both for war, and because he had a wish to know the land that lay beyond Cape Bojador, for up to his time [nothing] was known with any certainty about the land beyond that Cape. [Muslim knowledge extended little further, nowhere near Africa’s southern tip. ] …Since it seemed to him that without knowledge no mariners or merchants would ever. . . sail to a place where there is not a sure … hope of profit, he sent out his own ships. the products of this realm might be taken there, which traffic would bring great profit to our countrymen. [Also] he sought to know if there were in those parts any Christian princes, [who] would aid him against the enemies of the faith. [Moreover, it] was his great desire to make increase in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and to bring to him all the souls that should be saved. --The Portuguese historian Azurara
What did Europeans know? ? ? Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, tensevetes, wild asses, white and red lions, white bears, white merules, crickets, griffins, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen, and wild men -men with horns, one-eyed men, men with eyes before and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell high giants, cyclopses, and similar women. It is the home, too, of the phoenix and of nearly all living animals. --Letter of Prestor John
Portuguese Trading Empire q 50 trading posts by midsixteenth c. q Used heavy artillery q Purchase safe conduct passes q Unable to enforce; pepper and spices q Followed by the Dutch and English
“The king of Portugal has often commanded me to go to the Straits, because…this was the best place to intercept the trade which the Moslems…carry on in these parts. So it was to do Our Lord’s service that we were brought here; by taking Malacca, we would close the Straits so that never again would the Moslems be able to bring their spices by this route…. I am very sure that, if Afonso this Malacca trade is taken out of their hands, Cairo and Mecca will be d’Alboquerque completely lost. ”
How was the Brazil that the Portuguese found different than the Americas discovered by the Spanish?
§ Die-off of Amerindians § Early colonists focus on export of brazilwood § Turn to plantation agriculture; nobles receive land grants § African slave labor used as a replacement; less bureaucratic means to extract labor § Similar to Amerindians in the North, the peoples of Brazil were pushed to fringe areas § However, there was greater miscegenation with Europeans and people of African descent.
§ Large proportion of wealth came from sugar exports compared to exports in Spanish America § Sugar exports peaked in 1650 due to competition § Later gold and diamond discoveries fueled interest in the interior regions § While religion was important, it was less of a focus in Brazil than Spanish America
§ 1484 Portuguese King rejects the proposals of Christopher Columbus § After the discovery of the Americas, Queen Isabella of Spain request s Pope Alexander VI to endorse a series of bulls § Line of Demarcation modified in a treaty of 1494
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